R&D Activities and Extensive Margins of Exports in Manufacturing Enterprises: First Evidence for Germany

This article uses a new, tailor-made data set to investigate for the first time the links between innovation activities (measured by employees active in research and development) and the extensive margins of exports (number of destination countries; number of goods exported) for manufacturing enterprises in Germany, the third largest exporter of goods on the world market. It documents that more innovative firms outperform less innovative firms at both margins of exports—they export more goods, and they export to a larger number of countries. All of these differences are statistically highly significant and large from an economic point of view.     

贸易方式、所有权结构与中国企业出口扩展边际

本文通过构建出口的多重边际分析框架识别中国出口增长的源泉。然后借助基于交易信息的出口商-产品-目标国-贸易方式的微观数据,研究中国企业出口的市场扩展边际和产品扩展边际,同时从所有权结构、贸易方式以及企业特征等维度解读企业出口扩展边际的差异。研究发现:(1)贸易方式和所有权结构在一定程度上塑造了中国企业出口扩展边际的特征;(2)在加工出口和一般出口两种出口贸易方式下,各种纳入模型的因素对企业的出口边际所产生的影响基本一致,但生产率和杠杆率对于一般出口和加工出口的作用方向相反;(3)国有控股的所有制性质抑制企业出口市场和产品线的拓展;(4)企业规模、年龄、融资能力等因素在不同贸易方式下对出口扩展边际的作用方向不同。基于以上发现,本文认为针对贸易方式和所有制特征的结构性改革是实现中国出口可持续发展的重要途径。     

A Note on Firm Age and the Margins of Exports: First Evidence from Germany

This article uses a new tailor-made data set to empirically investigate the link between firm age and the extensive and intensive margins of exports for the first time for Germany. Results turn out to be fully in line with theoretical considerations. Older firms are more often exporters, export more and more different goods to more different destination countries, and export to more distant destination markets.     

The Extensive and Intensive Margins of Exports: The Role of Innovation

An important prediction of trade theories is that innovation can improve a country’s export performance. Using data on patents granted by the US as a proxy for innovation and data on manufacturing exports from 105 countries over the period 1975–2001, I investigate the extent to which innovation increases the number of products traded (the extensive margin) and the export value of each product (the intensive margin). The empirical results show that (i) innovation has a positive and significant effect on both the extensive and intensive margins. The intensive margin contributes 70 per cent of the effect, and the extensive margin accounts for 30 per cent. (ii) The effect of innovation on exports is stronger for low‐income countries than for high‐income countries. (iii) More innovative countries export greater quantities and charge higher prices, suggesting that innovation increases the product quality of exports.     

Foreign Ownership and Performance: Evidence from Italian Firms

This paper studies the impact of foreign ownership on a firm’s economic performance. We use a unique panel data set to test the foreign ownership premium by comparing our sample of firms based in Italy and owned by a foreign subject to a sample of purely domestic firms that, in order to have a proper counterfactual, were selected using propensity score matching. Our difference-in-differences results show the existence of a premium for the size, profitability, and financial soundness of the foreign-owned companies. The premium increases with time, is concentrated in the service sector, and disappears if the foreign investor is based in a fiscal haven.     

Time Zone Effect and the Margins of Exports

The negative effect of time zone on trade flows has recently been established in the literature. However, thus far, no paper has explored the differing time zone effect on the intensive and extensive margin. Utilising product‐level trade data, this paper examines the impact of time zone differences on the intensive and extensive margin of exports. Furthermore, this paper examines the non‐linear impact of different levels of time zone differences on exports. Using the Poisson pseudo‐maximum likelihood estimation, the results indicate that the time zone differences negatively affect exports primarily via the extensive margin, with no effect on the intensive margin, which suggests that time zone differences act as a fixed cost of exporting. Furthermore, quartile analysis shows non‐linearities in the time zone measure, more specifically that time zones matter more at larger time zone differences. These results can have important policy implications for nations looking to increase their trade presence.     

Effects of Foreign Institutional Ownership on Foreign Bank Lending: Some Evidence for Emerging Markets

Despite the large literature on developed countries, little is known about the interactions between corporate governance, foreign ownership, and foreign bank lending in developing countries. Using data from five Latin American countries from 2001 to 2008, we provide one of the first pieces of evidence of how foreign ownership affects the loan cost of borrowers in emerging markets. We find that in terms of foreign bank lending, the cost of debt financing is significantly higher for firms whose largest shareholder is a foreign institutional one. The results support the hypothesis that because of potential agency conflicts between shareholders and creditors, having block institutional shareholders tend to increase the borrowers’ debt burden. There is further evidence supporting this agency conflict hypothesis as we find that the effects of large institutional shareholders on borrowing costs become larger (smaller) when the conflicts are aggravated (mitigated).     

ODI二元边际如何影响制造业跨国企业出口

随着我国跨国企业国际化步伐日益加快,ODI如何影响企业出口成为理论研究的焦点问题.本文基于ODI二元边际视角,利用我国2009-2015年A股上市的172家样本企业数据,采用GMM估计方法研究ODI扩展边际和集约边际对我国制造业跨国企业出口的差异化影响,发现ODI扩展边际能明显促进我国制造业跨国企业出口密集度提升,并且促进作用持续增强;ODI集约边际对跨国企业出口密集度的作用效果呈现出不稳定性,不同投资动机、不同投资国别与不同进入模式下ODI集约边际对企业出口密集度的作用效果具有差异性.进一步检验ODI二元边际对跨国企业出口的影响机理,发现ODI扩展边际主要通过“固定成本效应”影响跨国企业出口,而ODI集约边际主要通过“生产率效应”影响跨国企业出口.     

借“一带一路”之力扩大对俄罗斯农产品出口——基于二元边际和VAR模型的实证研究

俄罗斯地处欧亚大陆腹地,是中国推动"一带一路"战略发展的重要伙伴。俄罗斯拥有巨大的农产品市场,是我国农产品重要的出口目的地市场,并且还有很大发展空间。集约边际是中国农产品出口俄罗斯市场增长变化中起主要推动作用的原因。我们认为,在农产品对俄罗斯出口中,俄罗斯市场规模和农业劳动生产率对二元边际产生作用的方向并不相同,但农业资金投入对扩展边际和集约边际均有促进作用。基于以上分析,中国应当结合"一带一路"战略的推进,加大农业资金投入力度,不断提升农业技术创新能力。     

中国出口企业的“生产率悖论”与“生产率陷阱”——基于2008年中国制造业企业数据实证分析

在Melitz提出从企业异质性角度分析生产率对出口影响以后,国内学者运用实证检验认为我国制造业企业出口存在"生产率悖论"即出口企业的生产率低于未出口企业,也检验得出出口企业存在"生产率陷阱",即出口对企业生产率具有阻碍作用。本文首先提出一个数理模型研究企业出口与生产率的相互联系,再运用2008年中国工业企业数据库实证检验"生产率悖论"与"生产率陷阱",并讨论它们存在的原因,为了使结论更加可靠,本文对出口企业与国内企业分别进行了全国、分行业、分省份的实证检验。最后在模型分析与实证检验的基础上提出我国出口制造业企业走出"生产率陷阱"的途径。     

外资并购的工资效应——来自中国制造业微观层面的证据

本文利用我国制造业企业数据检验了外资并购的工资效应。本文采用匹配的研究方法,发现外资并购的工资效应显著为正;对不同要素密集度、不同并购资本来源地、不同区域的子样本回归,结果均高度稳健;我们还发现外资并购更利于资本密集型及中西部企业的工资提升,工业化国家的并购资本有更大的工资效应。     

Foreign Ownership Restriction and Momentum – Evidence from Emerging Markets

This study investigates the impact of foreign investors on stock price efficiency and return predictability in emerging markets. It finds that stocks fully investible for foreign investors exhibit stronger price momentum than non‐investible stocks. The difference in momentum effects between stocks with different levels of investibility cannot be fully explained by world market risk, size, turnover, or country‐specific factors. Further tests show that fully investible stocks have no post‐earnings‐announcement drift (PEAD), and their short‐term momentum reverses over a longer horizon. These results show that the stronger momentum of highly investible stocks does not appear to be driven by foreign investors' underreaction to firm‐specific information, but is more likely to be generated by their positive feedback trading.     

Profit Margins in Mexico's Manufacturing Industry: an Econometric Study

Prices, wages and profit margins in Mexico have varied considerably. The purpose of this study is to analyze the evolution of profit margins in the Mexican manufacturing industry during the last two decades and to provide an explanation for the changes. The econometric study shows that surges in the exchange rate provoke increases in prices, both because imported input costs rise and because pressures from foreign competition are relaxed when domestic prices of imported goods rise. A second factor influencing margins is trade openness. Third, the level of profit margins also depends positively on the level of labor costs. An increase in labor costs tends to be passed along in a more than proportional manner to prices. Finally, an increase in interest rates seems to stimulate increases in profit margins, at least in some manufacturing divisions.     

On the Role of Imports in Enhancing Manufacturing Exports

Making use of a large panel data set on Italian manufacturing firms, we provide evidence on the effect of imports on the firm's export performance. We distinguish imports of intermediates according to their origin, and we find that inputs sourced from low labour cost countries promote the firm's export activity. Imports from high‐income countries do not significantly contribute to the export orientation of firms, especially when both persistence in export and the possible endogeneity of the import measures are accounted for via system generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation of a linear probability model. Our evidence suggests that the impact of imports on the firms’ export activity works through the cost‐saving channel rather than the technology channel.     

External Finance and the Foreign Direct Investment Decision: Evidence from Privately Owned Enterprises in China

Access to external finance is found to be a statistically significant factor explaining the probability of privately owned enterprises (POEs) in China undertaking foreign direct investment (FDI). The significance of external finance is magnified in industries featuring a heavy dependence on external finance, high technology, low tangibility, and high inventory. The external finance and FDI linkage is weaker for POEs with group affiliation, but stronger for those with generous employment welfare practices.     

The Dynamic Links Between Exports,Foreign Direct Investment,and Economic Growth: Evidence from European Transition Economies

ABSTRACT

By applying time series and panel data cointegration analysis, this study investigates the causal relations between exports, inward FDI and GDP for fifteen European transition economies over the period 1995–2014. This study goes beyond previous empirical works by using two auxiliary variables in the aforementioned nexus: domestic investment and government spending. Empirical findings suggest that though the effect of openness is beneficial to all economies of the region, the presence of export-led growth and FDI-led growth hypotheses are validated mainly for the group of economies that entered the European Union in 2004. Conversely, for the remaining economies, the results confirm the prevalence of a culture for saving over spending, which eventually provokes the beneficial expansion of their local investment and export capacity.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Exports and Imports in Mexico

This paper analyses the liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico since the late 1980s, and its relationships with exports and imports. Such a process has eased the access of multinational corporations (MNCs) to the country, which has promoted exports. However, it has also resulted in a higher import content and the displacement of local firms, which has limited Mexico's economic development through the balance of payments constraint. The analysis is supported by the existence of linkages – bidirectional Granger causality – between exports, imports and FDI.     

Imports and Exports at the Level of the Firm: Evidence from Belgium

This paper explores a newly available panel dataset merging balance sheet and international trade transaction data for Belgium. Both imports and exports appear to be highly concentrated among few firms and seem to have become more so over time. Focusing on manufacturing, we find that facts previously reported in the literature as applying only to exports actually apply to imports too. We note that the number of trading firms diminishes as the number of export destinations or import origins increases. The same is true if we consider the number of products traded. Our results generally point to a process of self‐selection in both export and import markets. Also, the productivity advantage of exporters reported in the literature may be overstated because imports were not considered. We find that firms that both import and export are the most productive, followed, in descending order, by importers only, exporters only and non‐traders. Our results also show the existence of fixed costs of imports, which appear to be of similar magnitude as those of exports.     

Foreign Market Competition as a Determinant of Exporter Performance: Evidence from Slovenian Manufacturing Firms

Most studies on the link between exporting status and firm productivity find no evidence of learning‐by‐exporting, whereas self‐selection of more productive firms into exporting is most often confirmed. Furthermore, empirical tests of the learning‐by‐exporting hypothesis rarely rely on a specific learning mechanism and instead estimate very general tests of the effects of exporting on improvements of firm efficiency. Lack of explicit controls for specific learning mechanisms in turn biases the empirical estimates against finding the learning effects. Here I undertake a more targeted approach to learning‐by‐exporting by using data on Slovenian manufacturing enterprises between 1994 and 2002 to explore a specific channel for learning in the export markets. Using a variety of empirical tests, I show that competition in exporting markets serves as an added criterion in firm self‐selection as only the most productive and fastest growing firms choose to enter more competitive foreign markets. Once home‐market competition is explicitly controlled, a significant productivity adjustment effect of exporting firms in response to intensification of export market competition is revealed. Crucially, this provides tentative evidence of learning‐by‐exporting, which has so far been elusive in the relevant literature.